Robots and Robotics. Computer Control. Computer Engineering.

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Androids, Human Like Robots	Microcontrollers, Controllers	Nanobots, NanoRobots, Nanotechnolgy
Computer Numerically Controlled, CNC	Computer Mechanical, Computer Engineering	Programmable Logic Controllers PLC
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Robots and Robotic links (Some may be listed under other sections)    Any mechanical device could be dangerous take all safely precaution's.

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Robo Prize a clamed PRIZE VALUE of Millions of Dollars. The idea of offering prize-money to help advance technology is not new. Throughout history, prize money has motivated people to achieve great things. Lindbergh would not have been the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic if it wasn't for the prize money. In fact, that was said to be one of his main motivating factor!

Robotics Robot Room Robotics Institute Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots Build an inexpensive, reconfigurable maze for robot projects Insectronics : Build Your Own Walking Robot Technology Student computer control Motion Control Control Engineering Virtual Library Control Robots JPL Robotics website NASA NASA Robotics Robotics Labs  (Links to Robot related websites) Mindstorms Lego FIRS  LEGO League International Schools' robotics competition. e-puck (EPFL Robot), Educational Robots Robots at LiveScience. Mobile Robot

The newest iRobot Roombas feature dramatically improved vacuum pickup, brush design, debris and particle filtering, advanced cleaning coverage and navigation plus innovative new scheduling capabilities. Improved cleaning performance  Improved navigation  Voice demonstration  Lower maintenance

Blasts out debris, clogs and sludge and brushes your gutters clean.  Reduces repeated ladder repositioning and over-reaching from dangerous heights.  Includes Holster for hands-free transport and convenient storage.  Includes an extra battery pack and an additional 3-stage auger

Pool Cleaning Robot. Cleans in-ground pools, floor to waterline, in 90 minutes. Aqua Smart Cleaning System. PVA Brushes "power scrub" pool surfaces. Cleans and circulates 70+ gallons of water per minute. 2-year warranty. Removes large and small debris down to 2 microns. Reduces run time of your pool's filtration system. No installation required.

iRobot Dirt Dog® Shop Sweeping Robot Sweeps patios, decks, workshops, garages, basements and other industrial floor surfaces. High-speed, counter-rotating brushes and an oversized debris bin clean up heavy duty messes. Easily picks up dirt, leaves, woodchips, nuts, bolts and more. Cleans beneath workbenches, cars and other hard-to-reach place.

Google X-Prize by building lunar missions complete with robotic rovers capable of roaming the surface of the moon for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and other data back to Earth, according to a statement from the X Prize Foundation.  Google Lunar X Prize 

FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a unique varsity sport of the mind designed to help high-school-aged young people discover how interesting and rewarding the life of engineers and researchers can be.

Issac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction must obey. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories, the Laws state the following:-

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Talking Robots: Henry Markram The last but one Talking Robots episode interviews Henry Markram, who is directing the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain in the Blue Brain Project. Using IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer Markram's team has reverse engineered and simulated a neocortical column composed of 10'000 neurons with more than 30 million synapses. Future robots may use the Blue Brain to build internal models or to allow us to understand and track spatial learning. Markram believes that robots as they are built today will always have fundamental limitations, because they are not able to capture many of the neural processes that the brain uses. In his view complex neural processes are essential in allowing brains to be flexible. For more information on the last but one Talking Robots interview listen in. To conclude the Talking Robots series, you are also warmly invited to share your concerns, hopes and visions for the future of robotics. To make yourself heard in the final Talking Robots episode, send us your text or audio message before May 22nd at talkingrobots@gmail.com.   Random Robot Roundup Chris Myers has posted some photos of a tentacle arm he is working as well as link to a story on CMU's CardioArm robot. Want more snakebots? Kikiat sent us a TechCrunch video of another CMU snake robot climbing a pole. Fiona Gatt of VIA Arena sent a link to their review of the Lynxmotion Johnny 5 robot with lots of photos and video. Ben Goertzel posted an essay in his blog about the possibilities of combining the iCub open-source hardware humanoid robot with existing free open source software (FOSS) applications such as Gazebo, OpenSim, and OpenCog. The Swirling Brain sent links to an ESA story on the use of AI in the Mars Express space probe, and video of a full-size animatronic version Disney's Wall-E robot roaming the streets in LA. Roland Piquepaille sent links to his latest blog posts on a new taste sensor for robots, UAVs that will study smog in California, the Microtransat robot boat race, and a robot chef. Finally, if you're a company looking for robot-related promotional swag, Rog-a-matic noticed these cute little robot thumb drives. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Are Humans Brains Unique? An interesting Edge article by Michael Gazzaniga ponders the questions of whether humans brains are unique among animals and, if so, what makes them unique. Are the neurons in human brains different from those in other animals? Is the wiring different? Is it just the size of the brain that matters? Do comparative neuroanatomy studies shed light on whether or not findings from rat and monkey brains can be extrapolated to human brains? Most interesting of all are recent genetic findings that reveal unique changes appearing at key points in our cultural evolution 37,000 years ago with the rise of modern humans and 5800 years ago with the rise of agriculture. There are also signs of continuing accelerated evolution in genes responsible for brain structure in humans. All of this is particularly interesting when considered in relation to the attempts to replicate human mental capabilities in robots. Michael Gazzaniga is professor of Psychology and directory of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara.   Robot Boats Prepare for Trans-Atlantic Challenge Robots entering the 2008 Microtransat competition will set sail on the Atlantic Ocean from Viana do Castelo, Portugal sometime after September 29. Hopefully at least one of the robots will make it to the finish line, located between 10 degrees and 25 degrees North and 60 degrees West. A TimesOnline article offers more details on the race and some of the robots. One robot, the Beagle B, generates 30 watts of power from solar panels to power an array of sensors, actuators, and 400Mhz Gumstix CPU running Linux. Other competitors include the FEUP Autonomous Sailboat with its composite hull designed by a Portuguese kayak builder, the Mark III Roboboat from the United States, and the Shoogle Nifty II from the UK. Rocky the Robot Squirrel and Other Robot Animals A CNN Technology article described Rocky, a robot squirrel being used by researchers to study squirrel behavior in the real world. Rather than observing squirrels in an artificial lab environment, Sarah Partan of Hampshire College and other researchers are using robot squirrels to study the animals in the natural environment. Scientists hope to learn more about squirrels communication techniques, social cues, and survival instincts. In additional squirrel-droids, the article mentions other cases where robots are being used to study real animals in the wild including an intimidating robot lizard and promiscuous robot cockroach. The article doesn't mention whether Rocky has a built-in cell phone like the last robot squirrel we covered.   Envisioning Robots with Eyes of a Fly Fiberoptic vision sensors developed by the Naval Air Warfare Center and the University of Wyoming, inspired by the eye structure of the common houseflies, might improve operation of future robots. The analog eyes along with their parallel processing system are very good at locating edges of tiny objects, and creating a view of the object even beyond the resolution of the detectors. As the object moves across the sensor, edge transitions effectively adds resolution to the information. Applications for the sensor with its 1mm ball lens include medical, industrial, defense, and commercial robots. Ultra-Super-Tiny, Sensitive Gripper Developed We've see super-tiny grippers before, but the ultra-super-tiny gripper developed by Yu Sun of the University of Toronto in Canada moves to the next level. Not only can it grasp individual objects just 10 micrometres across, it also exerts a tiny, yet controllable force of as little as 20 nanoNewtons using feedback. The result is the ability to grab tiny items and not damage them in the process. This comes in handy when manipulating living cells that are deformed or damaged easily when man-handled. The microscopic gripper can also detect objects it bumps into allowing software to autonomously close in on them for manipulation faster and more accurately than manual control by a human could. Unlike many other exotic advancements, these tiny tweezers are also easy to manufacture by standard silicon etching processes resulting in a production quantity price of only $50.   Environmental Risk Assessment Rover-AT How far are you from a Superfund site or Nuclear power plant? How many chemicals are in human breast milk? Well, you need a ERAR-AT V1.0 - Environmental Risk Assessment Rover–AT to find out, aggregate the threats, and help you understand the riskiness of contemporary life. While difficult to call a robot due to its lack of self-mobility, ERAR-AT looks ripe for upgrades with a couple of synthetically lubricated gear motors, a ROHS-compliant H-Bridge, and a hexavalent chromium-free drive train. After all, it already has key components of robotification including a solar power system, GPS, and vast array of sensing elements. ERAR-AT can also project video of fourteen-tiered threat levels onto natural and architectural surfaces in a similar way as R2D2 spilled the beans with that Princess Leia Hologram trick. This question stands out among the many asked: "Why has modernity, which was supposed to create a sense of security, produced more anxiety and threats than ever? " Robot Chef Learns to Make an Omelet Sylvain Calinon writes, "I am a postdoctoral fellow working on humanoid robot and imitation learning, at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. We just posted some videos of our work on Youtube, showing a humanoid robot learning to whip egss, cut ham and grate cheese to do an omelet." There are two videos, a short version and a long version. You can read more about Sylvain's work on his website. The work is designed to allow robot learning by imitation using a three phase approach: demonstration, modeling, and reproduction. A number of research papers are available if you want to learn more about their approach. This work is being done at the EPFL Learning Algorithms and Systems Lab.   Fluidhand: Prosthetic or Robotic Advancement? An 18 year old patient at the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg is the first to test the Fluidhand prototype and compare it to the i-LIMB. The hand has a large contact area and a soft interface giving it greater grasping ability and a more life-like action. Actuators are mounted in the fingers instead of in the wrist eliminating the power transmission systems normally required for artificial hands. Beyond the intended prosthetic application, one has to wonder if this type of technology will eventually be recruited for robotic applications where having human-like qualities could improve the acceptance and functionality of an otherwise cold machine. Random Robot Roundup Sorry for the news slowdown, folks! The editor mailbox is filling up fast. First up is an announcement from Trossen Robotics of their new chat rooms (don't forget the robotics IRC group is still out there too). Markus Waibel sent links to info on the Navy's $1.16 billion robot aircraft program, a gizmodo article on a flexible wing, crawling micro-drone, and engadet posts about the Quadrotor Aeryon Scout and the Caltech fruit fly flight simulator. From the Swirling Brain come links the creepiest robots around, swarming Belgium bots, an update on the O Terrill bum bot - it's being criticized by homeless advocates now, robot jellyfish (with video), a concept for a futuristic clear cut robot (to stop fire, not destroy rain forests, hopefully!), and a DARPA award to Boeing for development of an ultra-long endurance UAV that can maintain a stationary position above a target for as long as five years. Neil Shurley let us know that he's started a new blog called This Week in World Robot Domination. Kevin Prescott of ITC results writes, "I thought you might be interested in a couple of our recent robotics research articles, both about EU-funded research projects." He includes links to an article on the MACS project and RoboCup. We have two new blog posts from Roland Piquepaille, one on a robot crab built from Lego Technic bricks and one on those robot jellyfish mentioned by the Swirling Brain. Finally, Mark Miller sent a link to an assortment of videos he made using his android prototypes, for anyone who needs a little robot humor. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please.   Talking Robots: Yoky Matsuoka In the latest Talking Robots podcast we interview Yoky Matsuoka, head of the Neurobotics Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle. Combining robotics with neuroscience, Matsuoka has constructed an Anatomically Correct Testbed hand (ACT) using passive compliant materials coupled with simple control algorithms rather than traditional materials. Apart from serving as a testbed for scientific studies of the neuro-control of movement, Matsuoka is also working on future applications in tele-manipulation and prosthetics. For more on this and other projects conducted at her lab listen in. Report on 2008 MOBOT Race John Palmisano of the Society of Robots writes, "I just wanted to tell you about the recent MOBOT contest at CMU last weekend as potential interesting news. I competed in MOBOT 2008 at CMU last Friday. I got up two competition videos I figured were worth posting. C|net also reported on it (My robot is on page 6 and 11). The documentation on my robot includes video and the final score at the bottom of the page. And within the next day or two, the CMU newspaper should also have an article on it." (and another article)   Robots from Letters Jonathon Yule, a freelance designer studying at the York/Sheridan Bachelor of Design program in Toronto, shows off his keen interest and talent in typography with Font Bots - a robotic artform created from a collection of everyday letters. T-Shirts have not escaped the mighty Helboticia. New SigmaTel ARM9 SoC Looks Ideal for Robots LinuxDevices.com reports that SigmaTel has released an ARM9-based System-on-Chip aimed at Linux-based personal navigation devices but it looks like it would be ideal for robots as well. To help reduce the cost of handheld devices, SigmaTel added a NiMH/Li-ION battery charger, boot ROM, power management, audio circuitry, and other goodies. The SoC is also designed to easily integrate with several popular GPS chips including Broadcom, SiRF, and NXP. All the usual I/O ports are available too: LCD, FLASH interface, S/PDIF, GPIO, UARTS, timers, even some ADCs. If you weren't aware, SigmaTel is also in the process of being acquired by Freescale.

Building Your First Robot Build The Coat Hanger Walker Robot  StreetTech A DIY Robot - PC or Laptop Controlled. DIY Line Following Robot SheekGeek Educational robotic kits. British Robotics Robots.Net Robotics Design Process  Our robots  Galileo Educational Network EyeEye Robots Plant cells for robot control Lego Education Controlling Robots Controlling robots that search for Mars life Force Control and Machine Vision Guide Robots Robotics, sensing, thinking and acting    Robotic Timeline Robot Electronics RoboSavvy RoboFesta UK Active Robots

MAKE brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will. (Quite a few mini-robots to build in a weekend.)

Make a Reprap Robot Part 1: The Electronics - Weekend Project Podcast	Make a Repstrap (Part 2) - Weekend Projects Podcast

Reprap foundation or make your own since the whole project is open source.        (More Computer Numerically Controlled, CNC Links)

Mill Engine. Engineering and Mechanical Portal.  Engineering links, Mechanical links, engineers, machines, engines. Civil Engineering,  architecture, construction, transportation, etc...

Search for Robotics related links on A Science Portal. Ideal for Science Projects. Links to cutting edge science related web sites. Cutting edge science. Research and breakthroughs using State of the Art and discovery's of new sciences, physics, cosmology, the Universe, power sources, control units, memory devices, displays, portable computers, nanotechnology, organic, biological, medical, neurology, mobile, portable, WAP, G3, electronic, etc. Earth science, engineering and bandwidth solutions. Robotics, gadgets, chemical and telecommunications. Social, psychology and politics. A look at the future?

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Robots

Jeff's All Things Robot (lots of) links

Robot more (lots of) links

Robotics (plenty of them) links Even More Robotics (plenty) Links

Botjunkie:-

Mechanical Micro Mice Manage Massive Mazes Everywhere except here in the states, Micromouse competitions seem to be big news. The premise is simple: autonomous little mousebots try to find their way to the center of a maze. In practice, this can be a tricky task to do quickly and efficiently. The mouse has to be able to detect walls, make decisions [...]   Bots Create Art From Toothbrushes Vibrobots are pretty squirrelly little guys, easy to make by yourself and fun to watch. BrushBots are a sort of super-sized vibrobot, with multiple toothbrush “legs.” Stick them in a paper floor arena with some drops of paint, and watch them create a piece of artwork for you: [Direct Link] Designed by Christian Cerrito, BrushBots are simple, [...] ASIMO Does A Really Bad Robot Just a few days after I posted a YouTube video of some b-roll of Honda’s ASIMO conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Honda has gone live with their very own YouTube channel. There’s some interesting stuff on there, including this video of ASIMO showing off at the Kennedy Space Center: I guess it’s pretty obvious that the [...]   RoboGames 2008: Buy Your Tickets Now (Or Be Enslaved) Smell that? It’s the scent of oil, fried speed controllers, and battery acid. And it means that RoboGames is now only a month away. The world’s largest open robot competition will be taking place at the Ft. Mason Center in San Francisco from June 13-15 (Friday through Sunday). Did I mention it’s the world’s LARGEST [...] Animatronic Wall-E Fails To Clean Up LA He may not be doing the job he was designed for down in Los Angeles, but this (lifesize?) animatronic Wall-E robot is wandering around anyway, doing what he does best: being cute and charming. Take a look: [Direct Link to Vid] Apparently, these Wall-Es are being purpose-built for Disney parks, and there will be one of them [...]   ASIMO Conducts Detroit Symphony Orchestra It’s not too often (yet) that a group of humans takes orders from a robot. But if we’re going to obey one, it may as well be one developed and owned by a major corporation. Last night, Honda’s ASIMO directed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance of “Impossible Dream,” and it managed not to [...] Video: Dolphins Alright, with everything that’s been going on with Pleo in the last week, it’s high time for a disgustingly cute Pleo video. And we’ve got one for you… Here’s Pleo exploring Sea World; make sure to stick around until at least two minutes in: This particular Pleo is named Pixie, and it seems like she’s something [...]   Wall-E’s Eve: Designed By Apple? A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commented that Eve, Wall-E’s girlfriend, looked kinda like an iPod. I didn’t agree, not so much because I couldn’t see the resemblance, but mostly because I didn’t want to admit that Apple may have some subtle influence over the design of a major character in a Pixar [...] RoboExoticUS: Cocktail Robotics Over the weekend, I stopped by RoboExoticUS, a cocktail robotics festival with Austrian origins and a thriving and mostly functional contingent here in San Francisco. Why cocktail robotics? Besides the obvious (robots + booze = awesome), RoboExotica is billed as “an index for the integration of technological achievements in everyday life, and as a means [...]   Video Friday: X-47B On FutureWeapons We’ve written about the X-47B UCAS a few times here on BotJunkie, but for some reason, we haven’t been able to manage the same level of access as the Discovery channel. Sigh. At least we can enjoy the videos that they produce: Part 2, after the jump.

Feild Robotics Center the future of field robotics by creating automated work machines for land, sea, air and space.

TeleRAD is a radiation survey robot. The name stands for distance Radiation Absorbed Dose or in other words detecting radiation levels remotely. TeleRAD uses a Geiger counter to detect radiation levels.

Distributed Boundary Coverage with a Swarm of Miniature Robots.  investigate collaborative coverage with a self-organizing swarm of minimalist robots. The inspection of the compressor section of a (jet) turbine engine is a motivating case study (see IROS'06 and BSSAC'07 for a high-level overview).

Robotics and Automation, 2001. Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference

Your first robot - the beetle robot

How to build your first PICAXE robot

Total Robots Total Robots BEAM. The term BEAM is an acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and Mechanics. BEAM robotics was invented (and is patented) by Dr Mark W. Tilden whilst he was a student at University in Canada. Includes OOPic.

How-To: Build BEAM Vibrobots The key to Vibrobot movement is a motor (or motors) that employs an unbalanced weight. Pager and other motors used to create vibration alerts in consumer electronics use this technique. As the motor shaft spins, the weight on the shaft, being off-kilter, makes the motor, and therefore the entire pager, vibrate. Hook such a motor up to a little robo-critter with four fixed legs, and when the motor fires and the weight starts spinning, the bot will skitter across the floor.

A Beginner's Guide to BEAM - The BEAM design approach creates nimble robots from simple components, with no programming required.

Robolympics Gallery (BEAMBots)

Slarbotics offers competition robot kits, solar-powered robots, books, electronic components, motors, parts and information on the expanding field of BEAM Robotics. Enjoy our website, and we welcome your comments.

Solar Powered Picaxe Microbot (Vibrobot) This microbot is also called a vibrobot because it vibrates in order to generate horizontal motion.

Solarbotics is a BEAM robotics community server.  Complete BEAMbot Circuits  BEAM From the Ground Up

A Beginner's Guide to BEAM   (Makezine)

Build a Simple Vibrobot:-

			A Simple Vibrobot. Build a simple vibrating robot. A hobby robot, well almost. Wiring:-
Items required for the Simple Vibrobot:- Two motors from a Broken PS2 DuoShock, (Dualshock), Controller A PP3 Battery Connector. PP3 Battery. Some BluTack		Twist the ends of the wires from the two motors from  together so that each motor will turn in the opposite direction to each other. Connect these twisted motor wire ends to the battery wires. Place some BluTack on to each motor bottom and stick to the PP3 Battery. Plug the PP3 connector to the battery. Unplug to stop.

HOW TO - Make a Bristlebot a tiny directional vibrobot made from a toothbrush! The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun. The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version as seen in Make Magazine (check the video), and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.

Robot Arm With Fluidic Muscles.  Airic's_arm is a robotic arm inspired by your own arm. The company describes it as a "combination of mechatronics and the biological model of a human being." The mechanical foundation - the "skeleton" - of Festo's Airic's arm is literally a metal version of the human skeletal structure. The radius and ulna (primary bones of the forearm), the metacarpals (hand and fingers) and the shoulder and shoulder blade are duplicated

 

Bittybot help you make smaller robots.